


CURSE

by Lilian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, Dubcon Kissing, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Needles, Snarry-A-Thon20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24021346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian/pseuds/Lilian
Summary: Harry keeps kissing Severus every time they meet. It's a curse. No, really.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 29
Kudos: 408
Collections: Snarry_a_Thon20





	CURSE

**Author's Note:**

> At the end because they are spoilery.

It takes Severus Snape almost five years to completely recover from Nagini’s bite, and Harry Potter does not go to speak to him that entire time, not even once.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He consults his doctor regularly in the early days, sits by his bed for hours while he is unconscious, and later visits when Phineas Nigellus Black’s portrait informs him Snape is asleep. He works hard on washing Snape’s name completely clean, and bullies the Order of Merlin First Class out of the Ministry and promises to hold onto it and give it to Snape when he is up and about again.

The thing is, though… It’s never been the right time. First he had to help out with rebuilding Hogwarts, then he had to fight his way out of reporters and the Ministry’s clutches, then he had to find a way to deal with the horrible nightmares, then the Ginny thing happened and unhappened, taking a lot of energy out of him and coming with previously unseen amounts of emotional work required of him to realise that he wanted something different and that he was not in any way ready to jump into creating a family of his own and then he got back together with Cho, which was so safe and fulfilling and glorious for maybe four months and Harry proposed before it fell apart completely and the less to be said about his dragon-taming days in Romania the better. (Not to mention the failed attempt to try out for a Quidditch team Ginny worked for. He didn’t know what he was thinking.)

Sure, these were all excuses, but what was he to say to Snape? “Hey, how are you, guess you liked my mother, sorry I left you for dead in the Shack; we never received normal Health Education and you seemed pretty dead to me and like, the snake business yeesh does that hurt an awful lot?”

It was not cowardice. He simply wasn’t ready, didn’t know how to start, couldn’t imagine looking into Snape’s deep, very much alive eyes after… after spending countless nights struggling with the memory of him bleeding out poisoned blood and painful memories in his arms.

So when Harry heard down the grapevine that Snape was going to be discharged on Friday, he talked himself into going on Tuesday, convinced himself to visit on Wednesday, really decided to just go for it, steeling himself to walk into the hospital on Thursday. 

Friday, when he opened the door, Snape was standing next to his made up bed, completely dressed, packing his belongings. 

Harry noticed the scar on his neck first, and then the man turned towards him, and for just a second his eyes were surprised.

“Um. Hi. How are you?” Harry said. 

Snape grinned the same way he always did when he was presented with a legitimate enough reason to take points from Gryffindor, and something in Harry’s stomach twisted. Suddenly, there was this urge, this overwhelming desire to, to… 

He almost leapt over the distance between them, taking that five steps so quickly Snape had only blinked once by the time Harry’s hand shifted onto the back of his neck, pulling him down to reach his lips. He kissed him, head swimming in a haze, completely unaware, as if dreaming, and only one thing that had penetrated the fog settled into his brain was _he tastes like spinach._

After Snape slowly pushed him back by laying a warm hand on his throat, Harry felt as if he had resurfaced from somewhere deep underwater, breathing in for the first time in quite a while. 

He stared at Snape’s shiny lips as his head cleared in panic. He just, he had… _why?_

Snape looked back at him gobsmacked, seemingly about as shocked as Harry. Eons passed, and Harry had no idea how to proceed. He imagined their first meeting in a lot of ways, but he never, ever thought this would happen.

Snape gathered his wits quicker than he did, though, and his expression changed into something much more familiar: distrust. When he spoke, his voice was quiet but strong. 

“Let's never, ever talk about this.” His voice was similar enough to how it had sounded before the bite, perhaps a bit raspier. “Ever again,” he repeated, and it was an order, and Harry nodded frantically, and turned and quite literally ran away. He didn’t give a flying fuck about what picture that painted of a Gryffindor… or a war hero.   
  
He remembered hours later that he forgot to give the Order of Merlin to him.  
  
*  
  
Tossing and turning in the bed next night, he couldn’t help but replay that kiss for the two thousandth time. (Who knew Snape had such soft lips?) No, the important part was, that… well, he wasn’t killed, and Snape was fine and looked healthy.  
  
He may have recovered, but the whole “not killing his hated enemy’s son after he laid one on him out of the blue” was begging to differ. Snape wasn’t the type of person that went along with such a thing silently, without retribution.   
  
He really had to check if Snape was just letting it slide for some logical reason (such as an apology for how he treated him, or out of respect for his mother), or if something more _fishy_ was going on. Not that someone could pretend to be Snape for four and a half years, half of which he was unconscious, but Lord knows the man had enemies and it’s not as if magic and ill will wasn’t capable of a lot of impossible things.   
  
Yeah, he’d have to see Snape again. He should apologise for the kiss and give him his award properly. Then maybe some small talk, mutual apologies or whatever and they could be out of each other's lives for forever. Harry had been, in one way or another, planning something similar all those days while he watched Snape slowly getting better. So why did it leave such a strange taste in his mouth now?   
  
*  
The kiss itself? Had to be a fluke. A strange kind of magic. Some sort of a… whatever. Harry wasn’t _gay_. Wizards just didn’t do that, right?  
  
*  
Snape’s house looked really run down. And Harry once spent a week at a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, plus he regularly stayed over at the Weasleys’. So when he deemed Snape’s house “really run down”, it meant he was afraid that the door would fall out of its hinges if he knocked on it too forcefully.   
  
Snape opened the door energetically though, as if he wasn’t at all concerned about the same thing, but stumbled back a step when he saw Harry.   
  
“Potter--” he started, but Harry felt the same weird push as the last time, and he took a step closer to press another kiss against Snape’s slightly open, wet mouth. It sent a shiver down his spine, even as a few seconds later he jumped back to protect himself against the man’s inevitable wrath.   
  
“THAT WASN’T ME!”   
  
At the sound of his shrill protest, Snape winced. And then he most visibly started to rile himself up. Which, just, Harry wasn’t going to survive, not at its full blown, most likely. And a second unconsented kiss (even if it was not really more than a lingering peck this time, and yes, _maybe_ there was a hint of tongue but it had been totally accidental), Harry was certain it fell into the category Snape could justifiably get murderous about. But damn, Harry just died a few years ago, and he wasn’t too keen on doing that again.   
  
“Icametobringyouyouraward!” he blurted out loudly, interjecting his words into something Snape hissed at him that should not be repeated.   
  
Snape took a surprised breath and his cursing died down as Harry shoved the Order of Merlin at him. Snape closed his fingers around it instinctively, and then just stared at it.   
  
He stared at it for so long, Harry thought he was having a stroke. After what must have been a few minutes of silence, Snape grinned. It was something feral, and self-righteous, but not necessarily scary, like Snape’s other grins Harry had witnessed before. It was actually quite fascinating, and rather reminded Harry of winning a Quidditch match against all odds and… also how it felt when he walked into the first lesson of his Auror training and knew immediately, in his bones, that it was not what he wanted as a career.   
  
Then Snape’s grin disappeared, and he tossed the award at the wall so hard that it broke apart, taking some of the already chippy paint with it.   
  
“Anything else you wanted?” Snape asked breezily, not looking away from the spot where the metal hit the wall.   
  
“Uh. No. Thanks. I mean. Congratulations. I mean… goodbye.”   
  
He wanted to hit himself in the head. Jesus, he was really not getting better at communication, not when it really mattered, was he? Just half a year ago he asked Cho out again even more inelegantly, and now he remembered that too, and fuck, fuck, fuck.   
  
But strangely, Snape looked up at him with an amused light in his eyes. Even though he wasn’t smiling, not exactly, his whole face became softer somehow.   
  
“Goodbye, Harry Potter,” Snape said, not unkindly. Then he turned away, and stayed that way until Harry had shown himself out.   
  
*  
  
That goodbye featured just as heavily in Harry’s nightly thoughts as the kisses. For some reason Snape has come to the same conclusion, that this is where their stories stopped intertwining, a rather anticlimactic ending of an intergenerational tale full of betrayal and unrequited love and cruelty and sacrifice. And that was _stinging badly._ Not badly enough to be considered an ache, but. It must have been because Snape was someone who knew his past intimately, some parts of it even better than Harry ever did. And maybe Snape wasn’t the most coveted person in his life, but he has occupied so much of Harry’s time and thoughts and he was just a presence he never imagined would be taken away. No, not taken away. His parents, Sirius, Remus, Fred and countless others were taken away. Snape chose to walk away from him on his own.   
  
Why was that so unsettling to think about? It’s not as if they haven’t lived in the same country, the same small society. Maybe the man would go back to teaching, and Harry has already said yes to the teacher’s assistant position to study teaching under Miss Molarc, the new DADA professor. And even if Snape chose not to return, they’d bump into each other on the streets, or maybe someone would need a potion Harry could go to Snape for, or... He came up with too many ridiculous and far fetched scenarios for days. He imagined them trying to discover a cure together for a new disease ailing the wizarding world, or running into each other at the bank, or accidentally taking the same BSL course, or switching bodies due to some freak magical mishap, or having theatre seat tickets to _Hamlet_ right next to each other, or opening an orphanage together, or anything really.  
  
Still, even with the knowledge of the near impossibility of not meeting Snape again sometime or other, like, Harry was getting tentatively friendly with Draco ever since Neville and Luna started hanging out with him, and wasn’t the man Draco’s godfather? So Malfoy could throw a party, and both of them could be invited, but even that was… too circumstantial.   
  
Not that he could do anything about it.   
  
*  
Hermione, Ron and Harry had a deal about these Ministry functions. They tried to attend more than half of them. Firstly, because it supported the Weasleys’ careers profoundly. Secondly, because it was, at least in the beginning, fundraisers for good causes. Thirdly, it gave them a chance to meet each other, which in their adult lives has proved more and more difficult.   
  
However, they were so dreadfully long and boring, that it usually took Harry a whole week to mentally prepare himself for them.   
  
They gave each other updates on their lives, which was over fairly quickly - Hermione was still studying in university, Ron told them about a new flavor of a WWW biscuit George was currently experimenting with, and which he had to suffer through the trials to (they all knew he secretly loved helping out in the joke shop, but didn’t tease him too much about it in public) and Harry told them about giving Snape the Order of Merlin and kept mum about the kisses or how they essentially said farewell to each other. They wouldn’t have known what to do with the latter (same as Harry, actually), and would have freaked out about the first one (which, okay, Harry also regularly did, but he tried to close the whole thing away in a far corner of his mind when he was outside of his home).   
  
“Oh, right,” Ron said, and it seemed as if they were moving away from the Snape topic finally. ”Mate, I wanted to tell you before you heard from somebody else…”   
  
His voice was apologetic. Harry frowned at him.   
  
“What?”  
  
“You see, Ginny…” Harry looked around from the corner of his eyes.   
  
Their breakup with Ginny was kind of nasty, at least in the view of the press, which has done their damnedest to make it into a bigger drama than it actually was. Because yeah, there were hurts, tears, some unkind words and maybe even a bit of shouting on both of their parts, but they would have been fine if the _Prophet_ and the rest hadn’t blown it _way_ out of proportion. Harry figured that if not for the reporters trying to jump on them for solid months in pursuit of a juicy detail of any kind as soon as they were outside, they would have been on friendly terms by now. He wouldn’t go as far as to say they’d spend half the amount of time together that they did before, but hell, Harry _liked_ Ginny. Even before they started dating, they were _friends_. She was a great person, and Harry missed her.

It didn’t help much that Ginny was becoming a famous Quidditch player in her own right, so for the time being they mostly saw each other for Weasley-related celebrations, mainly birthdays or Christmas.   
  
But as a rule and precaution, no one their family or his closer friends mentioned Ginny out loud in Harry’s presence in public, not if they could help it.   
  
“Is she okay?” Harry whispered. Last he heard of her they won a match and she was photographed while she celebrated, dancing drunkenly and half-naked with her mixed gendered colleagues. (Molly was not pleased.)  
  
“Yeah, no worries, but… well, she started dating someone we all know.” Harry stared at him, then at Hermione, who had much of the same expression on her face, even though she most likely already heard the story from Ron. They were doing a half long-distance, half living-together thing, after all.  
  
“Why are you saying that so dramatically?” Hermione voiced their common thought before he could.   
  
“Why, does it makes sense to you? They couldn’t be more different!”   
  
“Okay, I thought you were hung up about the gay thing.” Harry, who chose that moment to drink, almost spat his water back out.   
  
“Why would I be hung up about the gay thing? _Charlie is gay_ , Hermione!”   
  
“What?” Harry hissed at them both, interrupting Ron’s undignified, “How do you not know that?” “What the hell? Charlie? …. Wait, Ginny?!”   
  
“Yeah, she started dating Luna, and I think it’s getting serious, well, serious considering it’s Ginny, and she wanted me to give you a heads-up about it.”   
  
“Now wait a minute,” Hermione poked Ron in the arm, frowning at him. “What do you mean, _‘serious considering it’s Ginny_? Just because she chooses to date at a more rapid rate than you, Mr. “I’ve been in love with my current girlfriend since I was twelve” Weasley, that is no reason to imply she is --”   
  
“I’m going to get some air,” Harry said, and Ron asked him if he wanted company, clearly mostly looking for a reason to get out of Hermione’s upcoming lecture on sexism and double standards wizards and witches face. “No, I’m okay, I won’t be long.”   
  
“Make sure you get back before Kingsley goes on stage,” Hermione reminded him as he fled.   
  
Harry didn’t quite remember which way the gardens were, but was so busy dealing with this new information he didn’t particularly watch were he was going.   
  
Ginny was dating Luna. Ginny was dating another _woman_. And Charlie apparently liked men. How did he miss that, when he lived in Romania with him for months?   
  
Harry wasn’t homophobic, he didn’t think, even if he has come from a strongly homophobic background. Perhaps that was part of the reason he didn’t think gay people bad, because Uncle Vernon hated them so much. Anyone whom his uncle hated that much was actually not such a bad person (including climate-activists, people who liked rock music, and… Harry).   
  
That being said, there was something there Harry really, really didn’t want to think about, which he quite sure he managed very well when Neville and Malfoy came out to them, because them getting together was just so baffling it overshadowed the fact that they were both men. Overshadowed it enough that Harry could ignore the unease in him. But Ginny and Charlie and Luna, that was not a _fluke_. If people could be gay so easily, so invisibly, what did that mean in _his_ case? 

He liked Ginny and Cho, he really did. But the glow Ron and Hermione had when they were together, hell, even the weirdly chummy way Neville and Draco recently started acting too, it was something very far away from how Harry felt in his previous relationships. Why…  
  
He only noticed he walked into someone when that someone drew in a sharp breath, tried to catch him as he fell, and tumbled onto the floor on him, kneeing him painfully in the stomach in the process.   
  
“Don’t you have eyes, stupid child?” Snape exclaimed, because fuck, it was Severus Snape halfway on top of him, and they seemed to recognise each other at the exact same moment, because they both froze. Until that hungry, mindless thing moved inside Harry again, and they were kissing.   
  
_They_ were not kissing, _he_ was kissing. Snape remained motionless for long seconds before he kneeed Harry in the stomach again as he crawled off him. He was so red and angry Harry considered asking the floor to swallow him. Magic could do that, right? He closed his eyes, let his head thump back at the ground, and waited for the inevitable. Here lies Harry James Potter, killed by his Potions Professor. He never had time to sort through his gay panic. _Fuck_. A really unfortunate time to have that revelation, five seconds before his demise.   
  
“If you touch me without my permission _again_ , I will curse you so hard you will need _walking sticks_ until the end of your days.”   
  
Snape intoned in a strangely composed voice, which just made the whole threat even scarier than if he used his angry voice. 

Then he was gone, and it took Harry more time it should have to decide against begging the floor for sweet, sweet relief. Pathetic, really.   
  
*  
  
The rest of the party passed with Harry trying to drink enough to be able to conk out once he got back to his house. Ron and Hermione were rather nice about it, probably thinking Harry took the Ginny-news harder than he actually did. Which was true in a way, just not in the way they probably reckoned.   
  
But no matter of the alcohol, or the atrocious hangover the next day, the thought of kissing Snape did not go away. The thought of kissing _men_ in general didn’t dislodge either.   
  
Not for long days, days which Harry spent cleaning and repairing Godric’s Hollow, which was the worst kind of work to do while having a crisis. Too many manual, repetitive jobs and silence to let the mind wonder.   
  
In the end Harry decided he had to do something about it. He knew he shouldn’t approach Snape now, not if he valued his life, but. Well, maybe there was someone else who could help.   
  
“I don’t know what to tell you, Harry,” Charlie said over the Floo. “Like, I always knew girls did nothing for me. Truth be told, for a long time boys also didn't really do much for me, but I’ve fallen in love with men a few times by now, I just can’t tell you if that feels different to how I’d feel about women if I was straight or bi. And if you are looking for advice on the sexual side of it, I’m really not your guy, I’m completely asexual.”   
  
“Thank you anyway,” Harry nodded at him. He felt insanely appreciative over Charlie, who treated this question just as he did every dragon or family-related thing over the years.   
  
“No problem, Harry,” Charlie chuckled at him. “Listen, call anytime if you need something, okay? And don’t forget, whoever you like or don’t like, you’ll always stay my honorary little brother.”   
  
*  
After kissing several men (and then women, for good measure), Harry concluded the following: he liked both. He didn’t much care for clubbing, however, so once that was ticked off his to-do list, and he brought a book on LGBT history, and settled back into his usual life. It was the middle of the summer, and things were calm. If Harry wondered more about Snape than usual… wait, no. He was always thinking about Snape one way or another. Just… never quite in this context.   
  
*  
Harry considered going back to Hogwarts on the train with the children, but then he remembered the press. In the end, he decided on a long broom ride, which was lovely for the first half day or so, and got a bit uncomfortable for the second part of the day. Harry stopped at an inn to spend the night, and awoke with muscle pain so horrid that he knew he needed to swallow his dignity and ask for help. 

McGonagall chuckled as she led him through her office, helpfully flicking away a bit of ash stuck on Harry’s travel clothes from the Floo. 

“You are not the first one who attempted this,” she commented, her tone warm and teasing. “I believe Miss Finnegan had been the last one stubborn enough to see it through. It took her a week, and I believe she was immediately rushed into the Infirmary. I advise you to pay Poppy a visit as well.”   
  
Harry must have looked miserable enough, because he got away with a light scolding. Pomfrey was suggesting he’d get a full physical check-up before the school year started, to avoid the masses of students, when a Patronus burst into the room.   
  
_Poppy, come quickly! Pomona had an accident in Greenhouse Four. No need for Severus, I should think, but something is definitely broken. Hold on, dear_.   
  
It was Flitwick’s voice. 

“Let me help,” Harry offered immediately, while the mediwitch fetched a bag that looked as though it survived the First World War.   
  
“You shall not!” Poppy Pomfrey rolled her eyes and gave Harry a warning finger wag. “You, Harry James Potter, got into enough trouble for a lifetime.” Harry must have looked hurt, because she added, a touch gentler, “This is not an emergency, Harry. We are a wizarding school, something like this happens at least three times a day. If you are to teach here, the first thing you have to remember is this: in case of an injury, _any_ injury that needs medical attention, you contact me. Understood?”   
  
“Yes, ma’am.”   
  
“Good,” she called back as the door shut behind her, “and you may call me Poppy!”   
  
*  
Harry had turned towards the library, since he’d offered to check some sort of a vampire-anthology for Hermione, and he kept musing about a world full of emergencies that don’t need Harry Potter. He was so deep into his thoughts, he only realised he was hearing footsteps when they came to an abrupt halt. Then he looked up, and Snape, the urge, jelly legs, reaching for his robes and yanking him to the floor kissing distance, a familiar word and tightness and pain, pain, pain, unbearable, un--  
  
Everything was silenced with thin lips pressing onto his. All the pain washed away - Harry felt woozy for a moment, then nothing. There was something wet on his face, and to avoid Snape’s deadly silence, he rubbed a hand over it. It wasn’t tears.   
  
“What the…”   
  
“Yes,” Snape confirmed quietly, even if Harry never finished the sentence. Harry had a suspicion that this was a new kind of deadly: Snape being so angry he went completely stone faced, his voice even and almost robotic. “I wonder, if someone who survived countless attempts on his life, defeated an evil wizard on the edge of adulthood, slew a basilisk and tricked a dragon and cheated death and done _all that other stupidly dangerous shit_ no sane person would ever attempt, pray tell, if someone like _that_ got a curse that forced him to kiss a man he hated, a curse that makes him bleed out of his sodding _eyeballs_ if not fulfilled, how the hell, _how the fucking hell_ is it possible, Potter, that you are not arse-deep in a book trying to research what had caused it and how to stop it?”   
  
Harry took a deep breath and stared back into Snape’s dark eyes. It was nice to look away from the blood that stained his fingers, even if Snape was staring back rather menacingly.   
  
“Actually, I was heading to the library just now.”   
  
Snape searched his gaze.   
  
“Liar.”   
  
Harry scoffed. Bloody Legilimens.   
  
“No, I was! Not for this _exact_ reason, but going there, I swear.” Snape gave him an unimpressed look, but spelled the rope-burns away from his hands, and the blood off him with a flick of his wand. “Hey, how come you bound me?”   
  
“Well, that was before you started the unearthly screaming. I was simply making sure you couldn’t attack me again.”   
  
“Oh no, there was some screaming too? I’m so _sorry_ , I didn’t notice because of the excruciating pain I was under!”   
  
Snape huffed, but helped him up and started walking with him. It didn’t miss Harry’s attention that the man was going in the other direction before their little scene. The pain. The kiss. The curse.   
  
“So you think it’s a curse?”   
  
“Why, you thought you developed such a strong attraction to me you’d literally die if you couldn’t kiss me as soon as we met?”   
  
He was saying that like it was an utterly absurd thing, and something in Harry’s stomach lurched at that. After effects of the curse, surely.   
  
“No, I just thought it was a weird dream or something. Okay, perhaps an alternate universe.” 

Snape looked at him like he was soft in the head, which must have meant that he understood what Harry was saying, but still thought he was really stupid.   
  
“I see.” The disdain that dripped from his words were deserved, kind of, this time around, so Harry decided to let it slide. It wasn’t much harder than accepting that there could be an emergency that didn’t need him, really.   
  
They got to the library, and Harry listened to Snape telling him to research his heart out. Harry told him he heard it well enough the first time, and the bastard quirked an eyebrow at him, and told him _again._ Harry made some faces at him in return, but as Snape turned round to walk away, he remembered an important thing.   
  
“I think you might have saved my life today. Thank you.”   
  
Snape looked at Harry’s hand that hovered between them. Harry thought it was going for a friendly squeeze on a black robe clad arm, but it recalled Snape no touching rule in the last second. Which was great, because Harry’s mind was definitely dragging behind.   
  
“You may have a kissing curse, Potter, but _my_ curse in life, it seems, is trying to keep you from dying. Something you constantly make very, _very_ difficult.”   
  
For some reason, Harry felt like laughing. Something in Snape’s expression reminded him of Madam Pomfrey earlier. Poppy.   
  
“You can call me Harry now,” he smiled at Snape, which seemed to shock the other wizard before his face transformed into one of his signature frowns. “When no one is around, if you’d like to keep up appearances. We’re going to be sort-of colleagues, after all.” He was sure that his smile turned cheeky, because Snape did a whole body shook in mock-disgust (well, Harry hoped at least some of it was faked), and he turned away and billowed off without another word.   
  
*  
  
Harry got about two chapters into a book on curses before he gave it up. He sighed, looked up what Hermione asked of him and went back to his quarters to make a Floo-call.   
  
*  
  
It was equally awkward and uplifting to finally confide in one of his best friends. She agreed to do research for him (she insisted that it wouldn’t be any trouble at all, and Harry, despite sensing that cannot possibly be the case while Hermione was studying for her finals, spending time with Ron, and helping one of her muggle friends as her maid of honour, while writing her forth publication) guiltily accepted her words as truth.  
  
Finally, after Hermione asked him to describe everything as it happened, and Harry had done so to the best of his ability, she lowered her pen and looked up from her notes.   
  
“Harry?”   
  
She looked cautious, which did nothing to calm Harry’s stomach. He was afraid of what Hermione was going to say, and he had no idea what would that be, and he had no idea _why_.   
  
“Why Snape?”   
  
That was somehow both less and more horrible than any other question she could have asked.

Why Snape indeed? Harry hadn’t the foggiest, honestly.   
  
“Hermione, I think I’m bisexual,” he said instead. Very carefully putting distance between his words. He was safe with Hermione, he _was._ Still, bloody terrified.   
  
Hermione smiled at him warmly, and with a bit of humour in her eyes.   
  
“Yes, I also think you are bisexual, Harry.”   
  
Harry breathed out a surprised laugh. Gosh, he felt so much lighter.   
  
“Really? Why so sure?”   
  
Hermione returned his teasing with a grin. “You know, the whole part where you spent the last twenty minutes describing to me how you kissed a man repeatedly, and you never once used the word “disgusting”? I mean, obviously not everyone who is straight is automatically homophobic or has stupid ideas about what masculinity is, but imagine Ron in this situation? I mean, god knows I love him, but he would be so _defensively macho_ about it.”   
  
“A bit of a prick, you mean?”   
  
Hermione rolled her eyes good-naturedly.   
  
“Fine, we can call it that too. Plus, really, I had kind of a suspicion when you left so abruptly the other time after we told you about Ginny and Luna and Charlie.”   
  
Harry swallowed, and looked down on his hands, which lay uselessly in his lap. He should have remembered that not many things happened in Hermione’s presence she didn’t notice or made educated guesses about.   
  
“You know it’s absolutely okay, right?” Hermione sat closer and lifted his chin gently. “I love you, Harry, and this doesn’t change anything.”   
  
He had missed her hugs.   
  
“I love you too.”   
  
“You know, if you wanted to date Snape, that would be absolutely all right too.” Harry froze in her arms, his eyes widening. Did she mean that? Hermione chuckled, and that was uncomfortable for Harry, but she continued with, “I reckon we would have to have a few very careful conversations with Ron, but ultimately, we only want you happy, and will support you regardless of whomever you end up choosing as a partner.”   
  
So Hermione also thought that it wasn’t a ridiculous thing that someone would choose Snape, Harry wondered. He wasn’t even as awful anymore as he had been as their Potions Master. And his mouth, and smell, and the way he felt against him… if he really had to find a word to describe those, it had to be _lovely_ , and a bit _addictive_ , even without counting the curse. Which should definitely been what he ought to be focusing on, not the kissability of Snape’s lips.   
  
“No, no, the curse is real. It wasn’t just an elaborate lie to help my coming out.”   
  
Hermione giggled, and Harry felt so, so lucky that they had gone into that toilet to save her from the troll.   
  
*  
A few days later, on the 31st of August, Harry was too excited about collecting the first years with Hagrid and walking them to the teacher’s table to spare a thought of Snape - the very Snape who brought in the Sorting Hat and the rickety stool the small children were to sit on to be sorted.   
  
It was as if time slowed, and Harry felt himself taking quick, decisive steps towards Snape. He whined low, desperate to warn him as he got closer and closer, and due to some incredible luck (or perhaps Snape’s spy days and paranoia), the man had the presence of mind to charm a huge black curtain around them just as Harry collided with him. The kiss quieted the noise inside him, but as soon as that left, in came the feverish murmurings of students washing over his senses. 

“Fuck,” Harry panted as they parted, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so--”   
  
Time suddenly seemed to restart, when a second later two things happened simultaneously - the black curtain disappeared, and McGonagall stood next to them with furiously pursed lips - and the second, even more surprising thing was that Snape punched him in the nose. Hard.   
  
*  
“Fighting with your hands like fifth years, I should suspend you both immediately,” Minerva had hissed, while Severus and Harry sat in her office later that evening, across her while she paced, silent and looking in their laps, exactly like scolded children. “We are trying to get rid of the ridiculous House-rivalries this year, and you start this nonsense on day one?!”  
  
“ _He_ started,” Snape pointed out, and Harry had to admit, the black eye spell he must have used on his own face seconds before breaking Harry’s nose was not only a stroke of genius, but a very clever piece of magic. He wondered if Severus invented it himself in his Half-Blood-Prince days.   
  
“Is that true, Harry?”   
  
“Oh, yes, very true, I’m... sorry.”   
  
McGonagall squinted her eyes suspiciously.   
  
“Why did you attack Severus?”   
  
_The only thing I attacked him with was my tongue,_ Harry thought, not too usefully.   
  
“Ummm....”   
  
Snape didn’t have to shoot him a look (although Harry was certain he was doing it, he felt him watching, or glaring, more like) to remind Harry if he talked about the curse, he wouldn’t survive the night. He frantically searched his mind for any sort of explanation that didn’t include the word “kissing.”   
  
“Well, I mean…” Snape murmured ‘Stupid Gryffindor’ under his breath, which was such a good idea, Harry could have kissed him for it. Oh, but wait, that would be counterproductive. “I couldn’t help it, because…”   
  
McGonagall tsked impatiently.   
  
“We just hate each other so much,” Harry finished flatly. He caught a look on Snape’s face which must have been a surprised snort or a small laugh bitten back at the very last minute, but Harry was too busy acting trustworthy and innocent to try to decipher it.   
  
Considering their history, that explanation wasn’t met with scepticism on McGonagall’s part, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder how he never realized they didn’t hate each other anymore. They weren’t exactly friends, but the same kind of comradery that connected all of them who survived the war together created some kind of special understanding and respect between them - something Harry experienced with all old faculty members who used to teach him, but set them all apart from the new staff. Actually, Harry dazedly caught on to the fact that out of all the adults in the castle, he trusted and daresay even liked _Snape_ the most. He was the closest to him in age as well, everyone else having at least 40 years on him (or both of them). How weird.   
  
McGonagall impromptu lecture took a long time.   
  
Harry glanced over at Snape, who was so unconvincingly pretending to be apologetic that Harry wanted to tell him to stop trying, he wasn’t fooling either of them.   
  
They got off with a harsh warning and an order to go to the Infirmary and make peace with each other on the way.   
  
After the first few steps away from the Headmistress’ office, Snape glanced back to check they were out of earshot, and then leaned closer to Harry.   
  
“Oh, but how could we _ever_ make peace when we hate each other _so much_?” he inquired mockingly, mimicking Harry’s tone, and Harry couldn’t hold back a laugh. Snape didn’t join in, but somehow he radiated amusement too, so Harry felt relaxed enough to make a remark.  
  
“Thanks so much for that save back there, I was struggling to find a good lie. And those spells you used?! I’ve never heard of them before, did you invent them?”   
  
Snape looked at him with lifting eyebrows.   
  
“Really? No complaints about breaking your nose?”   
  
Harry scoffed.   
  
“It came out of the blue, sure, and it still hurts, but you did what we had to do, and… I mean, quick thinking, creative solution, I can’t really fault you for that, can I?”   
  
Snape mulled this over for some time.   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Hmm?”   
  
“I did invent them.”   
  
“Wicked! Do you think you could teach me sometime?”   
  
Snape didn’t have time to answer, because the Infirmary's door opened, and Poppy waved at them to hurry up with a flick of her wand.   
  
“Minerva updated me on your injuries. Really, boys? Get on the beds.”   
  
*  
  
Strangely, Harry hadn’t met Snape for the next two months. He had no idea how that was possible. They had divided the days between themselves, so they could both eat some of their meals privately and publicly, too, without running into each other, but it seemed like that was an overcautious precaution, because… it just never happened. Harry had been fine, honestly. There hadn’t been any symptoms, and the curse hadn’t inflicted any pain on him as a punishment for not kissing Snape. Maybe it had worn off, which he couldn't quite tell when he hadn’t seen Snape in over fifty-five days. 

He didn’t miss him, that would be ridiculous. But he was unable to stop thinking about him, no matter how hard he tried.   
  
*  
When they finally ran into each other on a corridor again - thankfully no one was around, with most of the children enjoying their third official Hogsmeade visit. As always, there was a second of recognition, that crazy intense longing that produced the overpowering urge in his chest that propelled him into action. And then the lips which quieted down everything, and Harry’s body almost _sang_ with that few seconds of a deep, slow kiss. Snape was a bit more responsive than ever before, but Harry suspected that was because he was still traumatized by last time’s blood and screaming.   
  
So. The curse was still there.   
  
As soon as they parted, Snape stepped back. One, two, three steps. Ironic, how they were so far apart, when they used to spend all their time together shouting into each other’s faces. Now that hostility was completely gone, and surprisingly, Harry almost missed it. _It was simpler. Clear emotions, no complications._  
  
“How is the research going?” His no-longer-professor demanded.   
  
“Hermione is helping me now, but we still haven’t found…”   
  
Snape was in his space the next second, shrieking at him, and Harry winced from the sudden volume change. _Careful what you wish for, eh?_  
  
“--PERMISSION? HOW DARE YOU! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, TELLING YOUR FUCKING--”   
  
“Please, we cannot do this right here,” Harry interrupted, because the first and second years were still in the castle, and they were not _that_ far away from the library. “I promise I’ll let you shout at me, but let's go somewhere we won’t be overheard or interrupted, okay?”   
  
Snape turned, fuming. 

“Come,” he barked, and Harry had a suspicion that he was annoyed by the fact that that had been a good, mature suggestion on Harry’s part.   
  
Snape took them to his quarters and continued shouting as soon as the door was closed. Harry let his words wash over him, glanced at the room behind him occasionally. A nice, cozy place. Bit damp, but it was the dungeons, right?  
  
“--HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT PEOPLE WILL SAY WHEN THIS --”   
  
Interesting, how riled up Harry used to get by this kind of loud verbal abuse Snape was spouting at him now. Despite Snape quite literally punching him in the nose last time they stood this close, despite the bits of Snape’s spit that had been hitting his face with his explosive words - he was almost unaffected. He knew he was safe. He could hear that Snape was angry and frightened about something, well, about people finding out, but why would that be so bad?   
  
At some point, Snape had had to take a breath.   
  
“There is no one better at research than Hermione, and you **know** this. However much time it would take us to find the cure I guarantee she is able to do it faster than we ever could alone.”  
  
Snape ground his teeth together.   
  
“I am **not** arguing that. But she is all but married to Weasley, is she not? The Weasley who has five hundred relatives? I _wonder_ how long until the gossip seeps over to the press, will it be tomorrow, or the day after?”   
  
Harry had taken a deep breath and he was letting it out slowly.   
  
“I trust them with my life.”   
  
“All the Weasleys? How _touching_.”   
  
“Snape, please. Only Hermione and Ron know, and they haven’t told _anyone_. Besides, even if the media did find out, I don’t give a flying fuck about what the press thinks.”   
  
For some reason, that was the wrong thing to say. Snape became so red in the face, and literally started shaking with rage. This was much more unsettling than the shouting had been.   
  
“They are only after a juicy story, and they don’t care how true it is! Even if they found out about this, a week later something else would happen that was A New Scandal, and everybody would move on. And I refuse to be apologetic about allegedly dating a man, and I will never, ever let them to say anything bad about you. I didn’t campaign for two years for noth--” Harry bit back the rest. Fuck, he shouldn’t have let that slip.   
  
At least Snape stopped shaking.   
  
“You what?”  
  
Harry had never seen such an intricate pattern on a carpet before. Was that a scene from the Founders life? Was it---  
  
“Potter, tell me.”   
  
“I may have harassed the Ministry and the _Prophet_ until they agreed to clear your name completely, get the award you were due. It’s no big deal.”   
  
It was very hard to find words for the emotions that played on Snape’s face. They stood in silence, and it seemed as if Snape had wanted to say something multiple times, but he always changed his mind right before speaking.   
  
“That doesn’t _mean_ anything. You know how many promises they made over the years? It’s a completely corrupted bunch of untalented, spineless--”   
  
“They signed a contract. If they so much as mention you in slightly-mean-ish manner, you can sue them for millions.”   
  
Snape blinked, then stared at him. Harry held his gaze, trying to keep the memories of all the shouting, petitioning, threatening and bargaining he had done hidden - sent them to the back of his mind. Snape probably saw them on his face anyway, clear as a spoken confession. 

Eventually, he held out his hand silently.   
  
Harry summoned the document. He tried not to fidget while Snape read it over.   
  
When he was done, he left the room. Harry wondered how he could have fucked up so much Snape didn’t even bother to look at him or send him away. He didn’t know if he should go after him and try to apologize? For what? Caring?   
  
Snape came back with the same abruptness he left with. He held two glasses and a whiskey in his hands. The contract was nowhere, and Harry thought, _that's fair, it belonged to him anyway._  
  
Snape poured for them both and collapsed elegantly into his armchair.   
  
“Sit. Drink,” he ordered, but added a second later, gentler, “If you want.”   
  
Harry sat and they drank slowly.   
  
“Suppose the press can’t say… can’t imply anything. The students, the faculty, and by the summer all of the Wizarding world would know about it.”   
  
“So? I don’t see the problem.”   
  
Snape huffed like an irritated horse.   
  
“Everyone would _talk._ ”  
  
“At first, sure. But after a week it would be just another fact. People date each other sometimes, Snape. It’s not a big deal.” Harry remembered a crucial detail just a few seconds too late. “I mean, I know what’s happening here is a bit more complicated…”   
  
“How can you be this naive?” Snape seemed to be getting himself into a frenzy again, and Harry frowned. Why? “You were my student barely a year ago!”   
  
_Oh._  
  
“Five years ago. You slept a lot,” he corrected gently, “But in any case, I don’t care.”   
  
Snape swallowed back his words, and it seemed as though they tasted very bitter.   
  
"Could you please explain what bothers you so much about this?” Snape snorted dismissively, so Harry pleaded a bit more. “I don't understand, but I want to. Please help me understand."  
  
Snape didn’t say anything. Harry realised he probably wouldn’t answer, after a few minutes of silence. Well, there was one thing left to do - a deliberate offering of trust. Harry came out to Hagrid and the Weasleys and Neville (who in turn confided in him that he was secretly dating Draco Malfoy - so then Harry came out to Draco as well). So it’s not like he wasn’t… practiced. But still, the anxiety was there, that difficult bit of anxiousness he had to swallow past and force the hard words out. It was always better afterwards, and it became easier a tiny bit each time. _It will be fine, you know it will, just say it and then its out there._  
  
“I’m bisexual.” _There. Relax your shoulders, breathe in._ “And if anyone dares to comment on the fact that we are both men, or tries to give you shit because of the age difference… I honestly don’t mind telling them to fuck off, it’s a consensual thing and I’m madly in love with you.” _Stop blushing, get to the point._ “But if you are straight or… not straight, but in the closet and don’t want people to know... I will do everything in my power to keep it a secret. I swear. I got you into this situation and therefore I’m responsible for making you as comfortable and happy as I possibly can until we find the solution.”   
  
For some reason, as soon as he finished speaking, he wanted to hide his face away. Or just close his eyes, because Snape stared into them so intently he was sure he was learning all his secrets. Okay, okay, he knew there was a limit to the type of legilimency one could do without the wand or the spell, but he still wished that Snape would just _say something_ already.   
  
Finally, Snape seemed to come to a decision. He threw the rest of his drink back.   
  
“They constantly talk behind my back.” Interestingly, almost as if he was mirroring Harry’s confession, he seemed to find it easier to continue once he started. “Always have been, and I should have gotten used to all the comments by now, most of them are ridiculously stupid and everyone obviously _knows_ I’m not a vampire or a bat animagus, but it’s still…”   
  
_Humiliating_. Harry’s mind supplied, even if the man never said the world. His heart hurt for him, and he felt so guilty for all the times they made fun of Snape’s looks before.   
  
“To throw the whole, “He’s corrupted Our Great Innocent Hero” onto that pile is just.”   
  
Harry felt so dumb for never thinking about this before. Just because he no longer thought Snape was an ugly, mean and horrible, joyless bastard, it didn’t mean the students (and likely some of the faculty too) didn’t perceive him as such. Any reaction to their alleged romance would end up with someone criticizing Snape’s personality and looks, either directly or by proxy. Wondering how come Harry is “dating” this _specific_ person, and not… anyone else.   
  
“Okay.”   
  
The change was immediate. Snape seemed as though he battled with a dragon, but came out victorious, if exhausted and battle-worn. Harry took the liberty of pouring him another drink, which Snape started nursing right away. He seemed to fold in on himself, and Harry realized he had to let him lick his wounds in private.   
  
“Right. We need a solid, fireproof plan. Would it be okay if I came back tomorrow morning to discuss it?”   
  
Snape squinted up at him.   
  
“Make it noon. I never get up before 11 on the weekends,” he grumbled.   
  
“Wise,” Harry laughed, feeling honored by that tiny bit of personal information Snape shared with him without prompting. “All right, I’ll leave you to it then. Thanks for the drink. Good night, Severus.”   
  
He heard a mumbled “Good night, Harry,” when he closed the door after himself, and he couldn't help feeling triumphant - as if he battled a dragon himself.   
  
(Actually, he had done that, and in comparison, this was so much _better_.)   
  
*  
  
The next morning started with a kiss that made his insides melt. Harry tried to tell himself it was just like the ones before, and when that failed, attempted to at least blame it on the curse.  
  
As a nice change, Snape actually seemed like he was making an effort to be productive and level headed. He used his inside voice, moderately politely too.   
  
“We have to figure out its parameters,” he explained to Harry, inviting him over to the dining table where he seemed to have set up at least twenty different vials. _Waking at 11 my arse._  
  
“I’ll take your blood, and while the solutions work on identifying anything, I’ll try to take the spell off with all the variations of _Finite_ I know.”   
  
Harry had been queasy since he said “take your blood.” He tried to shut out the memory of Wormtail grabbing his arm and slicing it up, but it persisted.   
  
“I’m… not very good at…” He wondered if he was going to throw up.   
  
“Harry?”   
  
He looked up, shocked. More than a decade of “Potter”s, and now Severus uttered his name so casually as if he wouldn’t do it for the second time, but the thousandth. “You will be fine.”   
  
Harry sighed.   
  
“I know, I know, just…”   
  
He still shivered when Snape picked up a syringe from the table and waved his wand around it. He held his hand out for Harry’s arm, and Harry let him take a steady hold of it. He felt like crying.   
  
“Look up please,” he was ordered, and when he did, Snape grinned, which was unexpected enough to break through Harry’s panic.   
  
“Do you know what your mother's favourite game was when she was about seven?”   
  
“No,” Harry breathed in quiet reverence. He was afraid that if he spoke any louder Snape wouldn’t tell him.   
  
“Plaiting my hair,” Snape said casually.   
  
Harry felt his chin dropping. Snape? As a child? With long hair? That he let others touch--?   
  
“Really?”   
  
Snape bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile, and it was familiar, as he often did that mockingly - but now there wasn’t any malice behind the expression, and Harry’s heart skipped a beat.   
  
“Of course not. I was completely bald as a child. It was hide and seek.”   
  
Harry felt the laugh erupt from his chest, and although Severus didn’t join him, his eyes were warm and open, smiling back at him.   
  
“Could I ask something else?” Harry risked.  
  
“About Lily?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Severus glanced down for a second, then back up.   
  
“Go ahead.”   
  
Harry thought for some time. He already knew things from the memories, but it could never be enough.   
  
“When you first saw her. What was your first impression?”   
  
The easy air around them dissipated, but Snape wasn’t mad, just… contemplative, maybe. And a little sad.   
  
“I thought… _She looks happy._ ”  
  
They didn’t say anything while they were digesting that. Harry thought about those small children in Snape’s memory: one happy, full of life, and the other who was miserable and lonely.   
  
“We are done,” Snape announced, and Harry followed his gaze to the arm he was still holding. Harry’s. It had no needle-spot on it, no blood, nothing.   
  
“But? There wasn’t any pain, and… where is the wound?” Harry turned his arm around to inspect it from the other side as well.   
  
“I know you can be slow, but do you really need a constant reminder that magic exists?” Snape questioned. There was curiosity in his voice, with a bit of a teasing lull. The recognition slammed into Harry with the power of a running centaur. Snape was being nice to him. Distracted him. This was Snape’s nice, friendly side. _He had one._  
  
“Well fuck me sideways,” he exclaimed.   
  
Snape snorted good naturedly and went to distribute Harry’s blood into the vials evenly.   
  
*  
There was a three hour long of a rather boring set of spells that covered Harry from head to toe, but ultimately did nothing to break the spell.   
  
Harry wondered how Severus could possibly know that, but when he asked, Snape only said, “I just do. Shut up and let me concentrate.”   
  
It was comforting to know that even nice Snape had limits.   
  
*  
They took a break for a late lunch, and Harry realized, amazed, that they could actually discuss a surprising number of things amicably. They chatted about students and the DADA curriculum and politics and then Hermione’s studies of all things.   
  
*  
After all the spells failed, and Snape got frustrated because he couldn’t remember one correctly and he skipped through five books but couldn’t find it (which was frankly astonishing in Harry’s opinion, who needed to know fifty different versions to a spell that essentially all did the same thing with slight variations?)  
  
Then the potions were ready, and Severus made him drink some (they did nothing, but the one of them which gave him hiccups which Snape said was normal. But a sign of the potion not breaking the curse.) Then they had a tea, because Snape said they had to wait fifteen minutes before they could test the next one on Harry safely.   
  
The after tea potions were the weirder ones. One, Harry had to rub behind his ears and describe what color they felt to Severus while he looked at their actual color and took notes; another that the Potions Master sprinkled around him in the air like a fancy perfume. One he had to hold in his mouth for five minutes without swallowing any of it. (That wasn’t hard, it was disgustingly slimey.) Snape grew more and more frustrated by each failure. The last one which was deep purple and smelled of overcooked pasta, and Harry had to emerge both of his hands in it, then touch his fingertips together five times until the purple thing started sparking and evaporated.  
  
“Are you pulling my leg?”   
  
Snape growled at him, short-tempered again. 

“I’m not. Get on with it.”   
  
The purple potion started sparking, as predicted, which made Severus excited. But even a few minutes after the sparking, the goo showed no signs of evaporating.   
  
Snape cursed.   
  
“I take it this didn’t work either,” summarized Harry blankly.   
  
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.   
  
“Aren’t you sharp.”   
  
“Oi.”   
  
Snape looked up and over him, then he quite visibly made himself relax.   
  
“Sorry. Go wash your hands,” he indicated the kitchen with his head, and turned around to storm into his lab. He closed the door none too gently behind him, but Harry was still mulling over that apology to be too bothered.   
  
He washed his hands a few times, making sure to clean off any residue of the potions. Snape hadn’t reemerged by the time he finished. 

Was that a dismissal then? Harry decided to ask.   
  
“Severus?” Worst thing to happen could be Snape telling him to fuck off, which was honestly not that effective in ruffling Harry’s feathers anymore.   
  
But there were audible steps getting closer to him, and Harry prepared himself for some loud wrath or dismissive, impatient words, when the door opened. Snape was trying to barge out, noticing Harry in his way a second too late, and suddenly the _thing_ was back -   
  
Their teeth clicked together painfully (Severus must have tried to say something right when Harry leaned in way too eagerly) and Snape made a low sound of discomfort, reached for Harry’s head and angled them, pulled him closer and kissed him harder than ever before. A second later Harry was pushed away, and he tried to get himself under control (jesus, why was he panting?) to prepare for whatever Snape was planning to send his way.   
  
He didn’t expect it to be an almost feral grin.   
  
“That’s it,” he whispered, tapping his fingers together in thought, close to how Harry did with the purple potion. Except now the sparks were in Snape’s eyes. 

Harry attempted to follow what his train of thought could have been, but came up empty.   
  
“What is it?”   
  
“A clue. You’ve been here all day in my presence, and there weren’t any… incidents. But when I left the room…”   
  
The penny dropped.   
  
“Right! That’s it!” He breathed excitedly. “Go back in, and come out again!”   
  
It showed how desperate Severus was for the solution that he actually followed Harry’s instruction without a word. The door closed behind him.   
  
Harry noticed how loud his heartbeat got in the sudden silence. Then he heard the creaking, and Severus appeared again, face laid with anticipation, moving into Harry’s orbit. They stared at each other’s lips. No aching need, just Harry’s shouting heart and quick breaths.   
  
Snape frowned.   
  
“What did you do while I was gone?”   
  
“Nothing! I just stood here.”   
  
Snape looked at the ceiling with a dramatic sigh.   
  
“Not now, dunderhead. When you were washing your hands.”   
  
Harry couldn’t remember doing anything special. But…   
  
“Please, don’t call me names.”   
  
“ _Harry…_ ” Snape growled warningly, “Now is _not_ the time.”   
  
“But it is. The Dursleys called me names. I don’t like it.”   
  
The stark honesty took the wind out of Snape’s sails, and he deflated, turning from him a bit. Harry realized he was embarrassed.   
  
“Fine. I’ll stop. But do you recall any details about how you washed your hands, or…”   
  
Harry held up a hand, and closed his eyes to help bring it back.   
  
“You went to the lab. I went to the kitchen. I washed my hands three, maybe four times? I spent some time looking if there was any purple bits left under my nails. I… looked at your wall. Then came back here, and then called for you.”   
  
Snape was snapping his fingers, pacing back and forth, muttering.   
  
“Maybe the key thing is the _meeting_ part. It can’t just be meeting unexpectedly, because we discussed your arrival this morning, so we both knew we’d be seeing each other. Perhaps the key is the _arrival_ itself. So if I say… I’ll go to the bedroom, you go to the lab. Do NOT touch anything. Count to twenty then come meet me in the living room.”   
  
They did, but nothing happened.   
  
“What if it’s the distance?” Harry guessed, because Snape wasn’t offering any other ideas.   
  
Snape tapped his lips with his long index finger.   
  
“Could be. Let’s try. Go back to your rooms and bring down your cloak and broom.”   
  
There were twenty-five floors between the dungeons and Harry’s room, but apparently that was not enough to reset the curse. Snape sent him out to fly over the Quidditch fields and Hogsmeade. When he came back, nothing happened. So he used Snape’s Floo to pop over to the Weasleys’ for a surprise visit, bringing them some elf-made biscuits. Only Percy was home (who informed him that Arthur and Molly were out on a date), and Harry chatted awkwardly with him for five minutes, before Percy started talking about his new job, which Harry interrupted to say goodbye because of his “very pressing, really urgent thing. Meeting. Gottago. Bye.”   
  
He forgot to specify Snape’s quarters inside the castle, so he got spat out of one of the visitor Floos, which were thankfully usually open until quite late when it was a Hogsmeade weekend. He walked back to Snape’s using a few shortcuts, but he realized he was completely exhausted by the time he knocked on Severus’s door.   
  
“That was quicker than I expected.”  
  
“Yeah, wasn’t too keen on chatting with Percy for long,” Harry admitted, and Severus hummed in understanding.   
  
“So it’s probably not distance,” Harry sighed as he accepted another whiskey from Snape.   
  
“Yes, but I was thinking while you were gone. Maybe it’s _time_.”   
  
Harry had settled into the armchair and fidgeted until he found a good position. It was warm and comfortable in Severus’s quarters, and the buzzing and burning of the alcohol started to make him sleepy.  
  
“Hmm.”   
  
“It makes sense!” Snape exclaimed suddenly, and Harry whipped his head back up. He wasn’t falling asleep. “You’ve arrived in the morning. We… It happened. Then some time passed.”   
  
Harry smiled, pinching his arm to force himself back to complete awareness.   
  
“You can say “we kissed”. Or, just, you know. _Kissing_. Words don’t bite.”   
  
Snape looked away. The fire was making his cheeks look rosy.   
  
“So as I said, time passed. I just don’t know how much. Did you look at the clock when we had tea, by any chance?”   
  
“Not really. But it’s… half nine now. Jesus. No wonder I’m knackered.”   
  
Snape glanced at him strangely.   
  
“Do you go to sleep before nine?”   
  
“Okay, not really, but I hadn’t slept very well last night.” He had been up thinking about a certain _someone,_ and how it would be different to kiss him without the surprise or the panic that usually accompanied the previous times.  
  
“Fine. Go to sleep, but come back in four hours.”   
  
Harry refused to do so, which prompted a disagreement, which almost developed into a fight, but to Harry’s surprise, Severus eventually gave up, sighing.   
  
“I guess one day won’t make a difference. Go then. But come back here first thing in the morning. Good night.”   
  
“G’night, Severus.”   
  
*  
After they pulled back from the next morning’s kiss, Severus looked up the time and jotted it down.   
  
“Rude,” Harry commented between two yawns.   
  
“Hmmmpf,” Snape answered, then pushed him out of his rooms and closed the door.   
  
“Guess he really isn’t a morning person,” Harry told a nearby painting, which showed a bucket of mismatched flowers and an apple on a wooden table. The apple didn’t talk back. Harry made some faces at it, then walked up to get some breakfast. He looked back one time to see Severus’s door - imagined him shedding his robe and getting back to his bed, burying his head into the pillow. Wondered whether he snored.   
  
*  
“Less than ten hours,” Snape announced after Harry let him into his room, and they shared a kiss. Harry wondered if it ever got old or boring, the meeting of their lips, that short, heady connection. It would probably be better for his heart in the long run if he got less excited about it after some time.   
  
Snape invited himself over with a discreet note the teachers sometimes sent each other in between classes - it was the first time Harry received one of those, so he smiled at it dopily until he realized his room was a mess. Which led to some very frantic packing, a bit of begging to Dobby to instant-clean his room (Dobby’s gotten a lot less impressed with Harry as time passed, which Harry thought definitely benefited their friendship, but it didn’t quite help his dignity to promise-repeat everything after the elf).   
  
“Yes, I have to air out my room more often.”   
  
“How often, Master Harry?”   
  
“Um, I dunno, like once a week?”   
  
Dobby tsk-ed, but at least he started the finger-snapping thing.   
  
“Every day for ten minutes while the weather is nice.” He looked around theatrically, but the room smelt less and less like a teenager’s shoe, so Harry figured he should not comment on it. “Keeping the nice clothes on the ground, Master Harry, not very becoming, nuh-huh.”   
  
Harry checked the time, cursed and started helping out manually (elf and wizard magic did _not_ mix well), and soon the room was in a tolerable state again.   
  
“Would Harry Potter like Dobby to clean the windows?   
  
Harry almost nodded, but reconsidered last minute.   
  
“Do you think that would be overdoing it? I don’t want him to think that I made an effort.”   
  
Dobby seemed as if he was having the time of his life, which was definitely a strange look on a house-elf.   
  
Then the knocking came.   
  
“Thank you so much, I owe you _so much_ ice cream,” Harry whispered, and Dobby bowed, then disappeared with a snap and a smirk.   
  
Now Snape was in his non-smelly rooms, and he took out a stack of papers from his pocket to unshrink them.   
  
Harry realized with horror that his small room did not have but one chair.   
“I--um…”  
  
“I don’t mind sitting on the floor,” Severus said shrugging, and to Harry’s total astonishment, took off his robe and sat down, leaning his back again the wooden side of Harry’s bed. He started marking, and didn’t look up even when Harry settled slowly next to him, shoulders almost touching. (It would have been terribly rude to use the chair with Snape on the floor.)  
Harry had a book in front of him, but he wasn’t making any real progress. Severus smelt nice, as if he recently had a shower. Harry wanted to lean closer and sniff at his neck, maybe touch his face and kiss him again. They didn’t have to stop after one, they could turn into each other, and Harry could sit between his legs and--  
  
“More than three hours.”  
  
Fuck, if it took nine hours for the curse to re-apply itself, Harry would definitely not survive the day. Severus could probably _smell_ arousal, and Merlin help them if Harry got a stiffy! He forced himself back into his book. It was about… magic.   
  
“More than five hours.”   
  
Harry glanced at the stack neatly piled beside Snape.   
  
“How come you aren’t done yet?”   
  
Severus looked over, surprised. He rested his quill against his lips, which was just fucking unfair. Harry wished he stopped directing his attention onto them.   
  
“Harry, do you know how many students we have this year?”   
  
“Ummm, around four hundred?”   
  
Severus confirmed his guess with a nod.   
  
“Most of them have a class with me twice a week.”   
  
“You could always just ask for shorter essays or not test them every other lesson,” Harry muttered under his breath.   
  
“I didn’t quite catch that, Mr. Teacher’s Assistant, sir.”   
  
Harry smiled and thought about how Ron would react if Harry told him Severus was actually very funny.   
  
It happened out of the blue again. The Curse ignited Harry’s chest, and he grabbed Severus’s shirt to bring him closer. How could his mouth be so hot, so soft, so addictive?   
  
“Five hours, fifty five minutes,” Severus announced, a bit breathless.   
  
Harry blinked.   
  
“That’s strange. Why not six hours? Is it possible we miscounted?”   
  
Snape gave him a devastating look. 

“I. Do Not. Miscount. Ever.” He stood up, putting his robe back on, gathering his things with a lazy flick of a wand.   
  
“You’re going?” Harry bit his tongue. What a stupid question, of course he was. It was past ten pm already. Why would he have stayed?   
  
“Yes,” Snape confirmed uselessly. “Inform Miss Granger of this development, would you? Tell her to pay special attention to arithmancy and the number five.”   
  
“Should I come to the dungeons in almost six hours then?”  
  
Severus hesitated for only a moment. That would be at 3 am. They both knew this.   
  
“...Yes. It’s always good to… double-check.” He looked back at Harry on the floor, and smirked. “If you don’t mind interrupting your beauty-sleep.”   
  
“Eff off,” Harry answered, not bothering to suppress his wide smile. Severus glanced at him, completely unimpressed, and left without any reprimand.   
  
*  
Severus smelled of sleep, and he was warm and felt like home and Harry wanted to take that wonderful feeling from him, or better yet, share, just like they shared spit in the eerie quietness of the sleeping castle. Maybe it took longer than the previous kisses. Maybe it was slower, sweeter. But Harry only noticed that it wasn’t enough at all.   
  
*  
They agreed on a morning kiss, a mid-afternoon kiss and an evening kiss. There was a bit of discussion over the necessity of the third one, but in Hogwarts accidents happened to students left and right even after six pm and they both patrolled in the night semi-regularly, so it was just… easier. For safety's sake.   
  
*  
Harry didn’t know if he’d been content like this, ever before. The kisses developed into a habit, then slowly turned into more - a greeting, a tease, a form of communication that was only theirs. The months passed and Harry deliberately forgot to ask Hermione about any progress whenever they met.

The kisses became comfort, cherished gifts, essential as eating, sleeping, breathing.   
  
*  
Harry found a small gift wrapped in black in his pile of Christmas presents. His heartbeat picked up, and he tore off the paper impatiently.   
  
It was a tube of toothpaste. He had laughed all along the tunnel that took him into Hogsmeade, and had bought a cherry-flavoured chapstick for Severus in retaliation.   
  
*  
Their relationship changed too. They still fought of course, and they had arguments from time to time, but it lost its edge somehow. As if it was all just a game that they played. And on Tuesdays after their afternoon kiss they didn’t have any more classes to teach or observe, and so it just made sense to spend the evening together in Severus’s quarters, until the time for their evening kiss came. As their friendship grew, they stopped with the pretence of practicality altogether. Friday evenings soon meant “we are going to have a drink or three to celebrate that we survived the week”, and since they didn’t really need to get up in time for anything the next morning, Harry just stayed later than the evening kiss’s time, and they had somewhat ended up in the sofa sucking each others lips, a slick point of connection that Severus eventually broke with a drunken snort.   
  
“Sorry, forgot we already kissed.”   
  
Harry had thought he heard Severus giggle softly, so he must have been truly pissed.   
  
“No worries!” He had risen unsteadily, waving the apology away, and despite the room that was spinning around with him, leaned back and pecked Severus on the lips again. “I just kissed you goodnight again, see? It’s fine. Ugh, thank god it’s the weekend, I’ll need twelve hours to fight off the hangover after this.”   
  
“Good night, Harry,” Severus called after him from the sofa sleepily, and Harry had to remind himself why it would be a really, really bad call to go back to him to help him to bed.   
*  
  
He woke up with a horrible headache and a really dopey smile. He had been knowing that he was well and utterly fucked of course, had known so since that one time when Severus accidentally got a bit handsy in their early morning sleepiness - pulled him closer by the waist and squeezed a bit before letting go…   
  
But last night had been different. Sure, they were mightily drunk, but Severus initiated that snogging, because looking back, it certainly hadn’t been just _one_ kiss.   
  
So Harry showered, drank lots of water and lay back into bed to think about Severus in the dark. Wrapped a hand around his interested cock and brought himself to a quick orgasm. He had to do something before he entirely lost his mind.   
  
*  
“You are an angel,” Harry moaned appreciatively as the potion cleared away the last of his hangover in a second. It was a few hours later on the same day, and he had a plan, which still didn’t sound completely bonkers when he considered it with a painless brain.   
  
“I’ve been thinking,” he said to Severus, a phrase that recently tended to prompt an overdramatic gasp which in turn made Harry smile, “Hush. I really have been. What if we kissed for exactly five minutes? Maybe it doesn’t break the curse, but what if it stretches out the reactivation period?”  
  
“Would be a lot easier if we could skip the mid-day sneaking around,” Severus agreed easily, easily enough that hope flared up in Harry as he was stepping closer casually. “Do you want to time us?”   
  
Harry swallowed.   
  
“Better not,” he murmured, and saw Severus’s eyes lighting up with a smile before he leaned in.   
  
There was usually a moment where their kisses ended, a tactful, nonverbal agreement perfected over time and practice. That moment that was now ignored as Severus nipped his lips and moved closer for more, took Harry’s face between his hands. Fuck, Harry realized with a pang, he will not be able to let him go, his tongue was too clever, he tasted of coffee and sugar, and Harry had loved him so desperately he didn’t want to kiss anyone else in his life ever again, but needed more of him, only---  
  
Severus’s potion alerting thingy had chimed, and he pulled back, and Harry couldn't help but whine as he parted from him.   
  
“Do you have to go check over something?” He panted, looking his fill of Severus’s flustered and equally breathless form.   
  
“No - that was five minutes. Did it work?”   
  
“No,” Harry lied. He couldn't actually tell if the curse lifted or not, but he was long past caring about that stupid piece of magic. “Maybe we should try for five hours and forty five minutes?”  
  
Snape laughed at him with his eyes. 

“Our lips would fall off,” he informed Harry, and there was a small smile in the corner of his mouth, something Harry never before had the privilege of seeing. It had been the last drop into an already overfilled goblet, and it poured out of him without thought:   
  
“Would you consider going on a date with me? A real one?”   
  
Severus staggered back a step, his eyes wide, and the room filled with tension so quickly Harry got dizzy with it.   
  
“What?”   
  
“I can’t help it, I’d like to kiss you for more than just three evenly timed times a day, I want to spend more time together, hug you and sleep with you, because I…”   
  
“No.”   
  
They stared at each other for long moments, and Harry opened his mouth to ask _why_ , but Severus waved his door open and jerked his head towards it, then locked himself in his lab without another word.   
  
Harry’s legs had carried him over his doorstep, but didn’t take him much further. He collapsed next to the cold dungeon wall like a ragdoll, sucking in panicked breaths and clutching at his chest. _What just happened?_  
  
*  
It might have been about twenty minutes later when Harry calmed down enough to think about the whole thing rationally. 

Something was wrong back there. 

Even if Severus hadn’t felt anything in return, that was an overreaction. And even if the thought of being with Harry repulsed him (which it couldn’t have, surely, they kissed each other three times a day in the last four months!), they were still friends. Severus wouldn’t be this cruel towards a friend, not without good reason.   
  
They had to talk about it. He needed to apologize and ask Severus what was hard to hear about his confession, why he freaked out as much as he had.   
  
He opened the door, and immediately heard an explosion go off.   
  
*  
Madam Pomfrey put Severus in a medical coma and used a balm on his hands to help the Skele-gro regrow his finger, did some complicated magic to secure his ribs. Told Harry to stop fretting, that this was a kind of accident that happened to Potions Masters sometimes, and that the Professor would make a full recovery.  
  
Harry was not very reassured, but what could he do? He visited him whenever he could, and held his hand once it was safe to do so.   
  
Harry hadn’t even thought about the curse or their fight until Severus blinked awake four days later. Their eyes locked for a second, and Harry saw the moment the memories returned to him, and he felt the sensation he long got used to squeezing his chest. He kissed Severus, who made a sound that got lost between their lips, and--  
  
“Mr. Potter, step away from my patient!”   
  
Fuck, she sounded proper mad.   
  
“We are not together, it’s a curse,” Severus hurried to say, face red and tone embarrassed, and shit that hurt because it was a fact, but Harry couldn’t dwell on his heartbreak because Madam Pomfrey’s nostrils flared dangerously.   
  
“A what?!”   
  
Harry had ended up having to confess all of it, while Severus pretended to be mostly out of it, not really fooling anyone.   
  
Poppy had started shaking her head slowly about halfway through Harry’s explanation, and once Harry awkwardly finished, she rolled her eyes up to ask mercy from the ceiling of the Infirmary, or perhaps Merlin themselves.   
  
“Has it ever,” the mediwizard hissed through her lips, “even occurred to you two to see a healer about this?”   
  
_Ooops_. Harry figured that if the floor did not swallow him, maybe he should ask for Merlin’s help as well.   
  
*  
It took Madam Pomfrey less than an hour to come up with something. Harry still felt shameful at that point, but Severus, it seemed, got over himself quick enough to give a voice to his doubts.   
  
“How could you tell that for certain?”   
  
“I worked with her every day for two months to try to remove that monstrosity from her face! I would know her magical signature anywhere.”   
  
It kind of made sense, but the same time it didn’t. There were way more people that had to have bigger grudges against Harry than Marietta Edgecombe. Especially since that spell had been Hermione’s invention, not his. Harry tuned out the bickering of Poppy and Severus, and tried to remember the last time he saw Marietta. He couldn’t recall.   
  
“Whatever, I’m leaving,” Severus said decisively enough that it drew Harry’s attention back to them. Poppy huffed in frustration, threw up her hands in the air, hissed at Harry to “keep that idiotic man out of trouble” and stormed off.   
  
“Why did you do that?” Harry asked, frowning. “You are quite close friends, are you not?”   
  
Severus didn’t deny it, which meant it was a correct assessment.   
  
“She hates it when I question her competency, but the more angry she gets with me, the more likely she’s won’t drag me back to bed by my ears. I’ll apologize later, she will prod me extra hard at my next medical, and demand I take her out to muggle London to see a musical. We’ve seen _Wicked_ three times now - that’s her favourite. It will be fine, she always forgives me eventually.”   
  
“If you say so.”   
  
“I say so.”   
  
They walked the rest of the way to Severus’s quarters in silence and, once they were inside, Severus insisted that Harry help to clean up the residue of the toxic potion materials, the broken glass and melted cauldron from the lab’s floor. “ _If you really have nothing better to do with your time than to stand guard over me._ ”  
  
After that had been done, Harry supported (bullied) Severus into bed, and tried to ignore the tense atmosphere surrounding them, or the fact that he was in Severus’s bedroom for the first time.   
  
“Go away,” Severus murmured into his pillow after Harry had tucked him in.   
  
“We need to talk.”   
  
“No we don’t.”   
  
Harry sighed. Sometimes Severus behaved as if he was the younger man.   
  
“Please, just listen to me, I’m trying to apologize here.” He swallowed hard when he saw Snape lift his head and glance at him distrustfully. “I promise I’ll go away after.”   
  
Even if it would break his heart again. Severus tutted, which Harry had long learned meant, “Get on with it.”   
  
“I’m sorry if that was not something you wanted to hear.” _That’s not a real apology though, is it?_ “I didn’t mean to… I--I was way too abrupt and my timing was less than ideal, and… the _last_ thing I want is to make you uncomfortable…”  
  
“Then sit down,” Snape told him moodily. “It hurts my neck to look up at you like this.”   
  
Harry complied. They were eye to eye now, with him sitting next to Severus’s bed. It was infinitely more intimate suddenly, and he thought he could see fear in Severus’s eyes.   
  
“Nothing will happen that you don’t want to,” he promised. “And I will try to get rid of the curse as soon as possible, I swear. It was really unfair to subject you to it for so long, especially since I started enjoying it at some point and never considered that you might not feel the same. I should have told you much sooner about that, and my feelings for you. I’m sorry.”   
  
Severus stayed quiet for a long time. He was watching Harry like a hawk, or perhaps a snake, rarely blinking, almost expressionless. Harry knew that meant he was thinking, but he still felt as though he would jump out of his skin if he had to bear the weight of the silence for one more minute.   
  
“Well, I’m sorry I’ve almost blown off my head, ” Severus answered finally. The joke fell awkward and flat between them, but it was clearly an attempt to lighten the mood.   
  
Harry pulled his mouth into something he hoped looked like a smile. He felt like crying.   
  
“It really came as a shock,” Severus admitted unexpectedly. He was quietly mortified about speaking, Harry could tell. “I had to think. Alone. But I shouldn’t have sent you away so curtly.”   
  
“Yes, and you shouldn’t have started brewing while distracted,” Harry couldn’t help but add. The sight of Severus lying unconscious, surrounded by blood stirred up horrible memories. “It was really lucky that I came back before you bled out.”   
  
They met each other’s gaze, and Severus gave him his “okay, okay, you have a point there but don’t expect me to say that out loud” eyeroll.   
  
It made Harry smile, and Severus’s whole face rearranged, expressions changing rapidly. He looked pained for a second, blinked mournfully with a soft sigh, and then he shot one hand out from under the cover and laid it on the back of Harry’s neck. It trembled, or maybe that was Harry’s whole body.   
  
They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment, and the next they were kissing shyly, sighing and moaning into each other’s mouth. Severus sucked on Harry’s tongue, which he had never done before, and it hit Harry that they never quite kissed like _this_ , with both of them choosing it and knowing the other wanted it just as badly. But it ended when they had to break apart for air, and Harry rested his temple against Severus’s shoulder, and Severus’s hand left his neck to ghost over his face instead, stroking his cheeks, his jaw, his throat.   
  
Harry was sure he felt it when he swallowed.   
  
“I’m in love with you, Severus,” he whispered, unable to hold it in any longer. The hand froze on his chest, and Harry reckoned he fucked up again.  
  
But then the hand moved again, fingers digging into his clothes and _pulling_ \- and when he lifted his face, Severus claimed his mouth desperately, pulling him closer and closer, until Harry had nowhere to go but climb into the bed next to him.   
  
They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and every time Harry wanted to say something Severus moved back on to distract him, which Harry figured might be due to embarrassment, or him trying to avoid having to react to Harry’s words in any other manner than with his hungry lips and restless hands.   
  
It ultimately didn’t matter, because it was much more important to get rid of their clothes as soon as possible, and to stroke every inch of revealed skin until their arousal got too difficult to ignore it any longer.   
  
Harry quite possibly never experienced anything better in his life than the feeling of Severus’s long fingers wrapped around his erection. It was equally nice to feel Severus’s excitement for him, and he couldn’t wait for the next time they did this, when they wouldn’t have to fumble under the blanket, be extra careful of not elbowing Severus into his still sensitive ribs, or simply not working with six months’ worth of pining. Yeah, there was no way Harry wasn’t going to come in like two and a half minutes. Not with Severus leaning closer to pant into his ears, and asking unbelievable things like,  
  
“Would you like my fingers?”   
  
Harry moaned, nodding frantically. Fuck, he never even _considered_ the _possibilities_.   
  
“They’re brand new,” Severus continued whispering, the sensuality in his voice amping up, and Harry had to work hard to get the control of his brain back from his cock and figure out what was weird about that sentence.   
  
“Oh my god!” He howled with laughter when he had finally understood, gasping for air, accidentally kicking Severus in the feet and not minding it in the slightest. “Why would you say something like that?!”   
  
“To make you laugh,” said Severus with a bit of uncertainty, but using the kind of tone that caused butterflies to appear in Harry’s stomach... because that _was a confession_ right there.   
  
“I love you,” he sighed in response, leaning in for another kiss.   
  
Just because it ended under five minutes and with both of them being sticky and arguing about which of them should get the other’s wand and where the wands were anyway, Harry couldn’t help but grin. He kept pressing kisses to Severus’s neck and shoulders. Then the other wizard cleared his throat.   
  
“All right.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“I’ll go on a date with you.”   
  
Was there a good enough answer to that, one that conveyed how much joy and love and content Harry felt?   
  
_Well, perhaps looking for the right words is a waste of time,_ Harry thought, and then kissed all the delights of his affection into Severus’s mouth.   
  
**_Epilogue_**  
  
_I wouldn’t mind having a place like this_ , Hermione thought as she raised her hand to knock on the neat little cottage door. It had a wooden bird knocker on it, in the middle of vibrantly colored flowers painted on. Perhaps it was a bit remote - she checked back to see the main road, and the closest neighbouring houses. Okay, that was actually the kind of distance she’d prefer sometimes between the Wallows and them. The door had opened quietly, and Hermione had only managed to turn halfway when she felt the curse hit her in the back, making her struggle to remain upright. There was another spell cast over her, and before she backed out, she swore at herself for not leaving a note to say where she had gone.   
  
When she had regained awareness, she was wandless and tied to a chair, there was a piece of cloth stuffed into her mouth, and she had Marietta Edgecombe standing over her with a knife.   
  
The knife came closer, and Hermione had closed her eyes to concentrate on some kind of defensive spell, when there was a sudden, barking laughter.   
  
“For Merlin’s sake, I’m not going to stab you,” Hermione opened her eyes and stared at her. “Did you think I was going to kill you?”   
  
What else was she supposed to think when she was moving that knife so close to her?   
  
Marietta was wearing some kind of spell that covered most of her face except her eyes, and it was difficult to look at any other part of her without feeling seconds away from a splitting headache.   
  
“I’ve started watching Muggle movies recently, and they always have the people who want to negotiate do this.”   
  
Hermione wanted to tell her that those people were called “villains” for exactly this reason.   
  
“It took you long enough to connect the dots. I expected you months ago to be honest. Who did Potter end up kissing? Mrs. Weasley? Kingsley?” Marietta laughed joylessly. “Oh, was it you? Maybe that’s why it took so long? You couldn’t leave your best friend and your boyfriend alone without fearing they would kill each other?”   
  
That’s unnecessarily dramatic and a little bit insulting, Hermione thought while she tested her binds. They were tied both magically and physically.   
  
“Anyhow, it’s not really a priority. Although I do hope it caused you countless sleepless nights to find a solution.”   
  
She _did_ know enough about dark curses now to write a whole thesis about them. Hermione promised herself that if she got out of this situation unharmed, she would. That helped her calm down a tad.   
  
“Do you remember what you did to me? Well, that elaborate joke was only a reason to lure you here.”   
  
Hermione glanced around to see what was so special about this place, but to her the inside of the house seemed just as pretty and cozy as the outside. When she looked back, her stomach did a backflip. Marietta had undone whatever was hiding her face, and what was under horrified Hermione to the bone. SNEAK. Ugly, red letters made out of pimples and warts and swellings and boils.   
  
Hermione thought… gosh, she didn’t know what she thought. Besides the fact that she should have slapped her teenager self as an adult. It’s been… Jesus, seven years. She hadn’t seen Marietta again since the end of their fifth year, and she had never wondered about what happened to her. 

And a week earlier, when Harry told her Madam Pomfrey thought the curse originated from Marietta, she honestly… Well, she never assumed that her jinx was something other witches and wizards couldn’t _fix_. But if that was the case, why hadn’t Marietta contacted her sooner?   
  
“Oh, don’t pretend to be all horrified now!” She gave her a mean look, which Hermione absolutely deserved, even if she _was_ horrified. At her own actions. “I’ve thought of a punishment, and if you manage to make this better, I’ll let you go without ruining _your_ face, and might even consider lifting our dear Harry’s curse.”   
  
Hermione nodded desperately.   
  
“Sure, now you are all eager when I got you tied to a chair and threatened you Muggle-style. But I don’t think so. I had this mark for seven years now, and I don’t intend to let you leave without a similar one. Except I won’t mark your face, because I’m not an _asshole_.”   
  
She did something to the ropes holding her, and pulled one of Hermione’s arms closer to her.   
  
“Also, I heard you are running for Minister, and you are actually much better suited for it than that racist, elitist prick Bell.”   
  
Hermione stared at Marietta. That was a lot of mixed signals. What was going on?   
  
“Believe me, you’d lose more than half of your voters if you had BARBARIC written on your face.”   
  
Marietta paused for dramatic effect - and Hermione supposed it was fitting. Cruel and primitive. Maybe it would be a good reminder - to practice empathy and try to think of the long-term consequences of her actions. Maybe her Mum was right, and she really wasn’t ready to be a Minister. But for fucks sakes, she was fifteen back then - she’d never do something like this _now_.   
  
Marietta pushed up her sleeve, but paused when she saw the scar. Hermione was so used to it by now that she usually forgot about it. _MUDBLOOD_.   
  
“Is that from the war?” Marietta whispered, voice suddenly breaking.   
  
Hermione nodded.   
  
Marietta let go of her hand and collapsed onto a wooden chair, staring at her own hands with a horrified expression.   
  
“I’m sorry! I didn’t want to… I was just…” To Hermione’s surprise, she started weeping. “I’ve been so alone! Mum died two years ago and I was stuck here on my own ever since, it took me _ages_ to find this glamour and I can’t maintain it for more than an hour at a time, and all my friends are slowly getting married and everybody looks at me with so much _pity_ , I…” She looked up, clearly vulnerable and lost. She scowled at Hermione’s expression.   
  
“Yeah, I can see you are the same. You know how people associate ugliness with evil? Someone who is monstrous on the outside must be completely rotten inside too, right? I guess I’m not really challenging that stereotype, when I tied you up like a movie villain.”   
  
She flicked her wand, and Hermione’s ropes disappeared. Marietta turned away, hiccuping and crying into her hands. It was a heartbreaking sight, and Hermione wanted to cry with her, but she told herself that she had no right to cry now, and had to start to make amends immediately.   
  
She pulled the piece of cloth out of her mouth, and deposited it on the small cupboard behind the chair. Her wand was lying there, completely unharmed.   
  
“I’m so sorry,” Hermione apologized, cautiously stepping closer to her, trying to hold her wand in front of her in the least threatening way possible. “You are right, I was an asshole. I should have taken the jinx off after a month or at least the end of the year… god, I don’t know. I never… Believe me, if I could go back and punch myself in the face, I would.”   
  
Marietta sniffed, and looked at her.   
  
“Can you get rid of it now?” she pleaded.   
  
“I’ll try,” Hermione promised, then realized that was nowhere near enough. “Even if I can’t do it now, I won’t rest until I figure out how to treat it, okay? You have my word.”   
  
Marietta gave a shaky sigh. She was exhausted, and Hermione felt for her as she would have for a little sister.   
  
“Try it now, please. I hate it so much, please help.”   
  
Hermione murmured _Finite Incantatem._ A smaller wart disappeared. 

She prayed to all gods that it would be that easy. She cast the spell again. And again. And again.   
  
*  
It took a month to slowly clear Marietta’s face, but by the time they were done completely, they’d become friends. Hermione all but moved in after a few days, because they figured out that the most effective way to get the best results were to cast the spell every half an hour. That took a lot of energy out of Hermione, but they had to have it this way. The magic was old, stubborn, and it fought back, even against Hermione, who created the jinx originally. It was a fascinating thing to experiment with, trying to guess how the jinx evolved and fused with Marietta’s skin, but Hermione figured this was not the time for her to sate her academic curiosity.  
  
“Why did you choose Harry and not me?” Hermione asked one evening, slowly combing Marietta’s hair.   
  
“I wanted to bother you as much as possible,” Marietta shrugged unapologetically. They agreed that it was quite fair that she lashed out, because nobody got hurt, but next time she should just send an owl instead of going to all that trouble. “I knew that whatever happened to Harry, you were the one was most likely to do the heavy lifting in trying to find out what it was and how to actually solve most of his problems, and he has more enemies than you, so you wouldn’t have suspected me for a long time. I imagined that the added stress of this thing would make it really frustrating and difficult for you to get on with your life. I remembered how you always did at least eight things at any given time, and I reckoned that probably hadn’t changed just because you were recommended to become the next Minister of Magic.”  
  
“Clever,” Hermione remarked.   
  
“I thought so myself,” Marietta turned and winked at her. Her face was much more clear, warts all gone, pimples not so ugly red, the S completely missing, and the E fading rapidly too. “I found the curse in one of our old family books, and put my own spin on it. Even if you somehow found the base of it _and_ realized it was the one, you still couldn’t do anything without finding me first.”   
  
Something about that explanation was still not sitting right with Hermione, though.   
  
“But why Harry? You must have known we’ve been together with Ron, and he has been an Auror for years - plenty of potential enemies there. He would have been a more obvious choice, he’d rather die than spend his free time reading books. Harry can apply himself if he really wants to, and really, whatever happens to him, he always bounces back eventually. Plus I tend to be more worried about Ron - not just because he is my boyfriend, but he is much less resilient than The Boy Who Lived to Defeat Voldemort.”   
  
Marietta blushed, which piqued Hermione’s curiosity.   
  
“You don’t have to tell me.”   
  
Marietta eventually did, a few days before they were completely done with the removal of the jinx. They had made themselves hot chocolate and sat down to watch a bit of television - a new and exciting bit of Muggle culture Marietta recently discovered was science fiction, and she was rapidly falling in love with it.   
  
“I’ve had a crush on Cho since we were about twelve,” Marietta told the telly quietly, and Hermione pretended not to look at her to make the confession easier. “It didn’t really help that she was the only one who stood by me in those days when the jinx was new. I never told her. I don’t even know if she likes girls.”   
  
Hermione hummed. That was the missing piece of the puzzle. Harry dated Cho for a few months before moving to Hogwarts - they were engaged even, if only for a short amount of time. Marietta must have placed the curse then, before they broke it off. They already talked about how it never had any specific direction, it just chose the first person Harry felt awkward around ensuring that the kissing turned out extremely uncomfortably for him.   
  
Hermione resolved to ask Cho if she was straight the next time they saw each other. They worked at the same place after all, and the least Hermione could do was to attempt a teensy bit of matchmaking.   
  
“I wouldn’t worry in your stead,” she told Marietta conspiratorially. “Even is she isn’t that way inclined, there are a lot of lovely witches out there who would be lucky to meet you.”   
  
*  
Even though Marietta promised to take the Kissing Curse off Harry the day they finished restoring her face, it dawned on Hermione years later, when she was watching Mr. Harry Potter-Snape and Mr. Severus Snape-Potter share their first kiss as newlyweds, that she never bothered to follow up on whether she had actually done it.   
  
Hermione made herself a mental note to ask about it the next time they met for drinks. Lucy, Marietta’s current girlfriend was a bigger Chudley Cannons fan than Ron, and they got along like a house on fire, so Hermione was sure she’d find a quiet moment to ask Marie about it.   
  
Not that - she thought, seeing how happy Harry and Severus looked, staring at each other in blissful euphoria- anyone truly cared, one way or another.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N: “ _Charlie is gay, Hermione._ ” Is not my invention, but I have no idea where I’ve read it. Tumblr?  
>    
> A/N2: I wanted to use the Hungarian translation for Marietta’s pimple-tattoos originally (it’s something I’d translate back to English as TRAITOR), because it’s much more dramatic than SNEAK, and why go less dramatic when you can go more dramatic, amIright? In the end I went with SNEAK, because it’s exactly five letters. Sorry for peppering the number five in there so much btw, I was entertaining myself with them mainly. What, you don’t leave yourselves Easter Eggs in your own fics?   
>    
> A/N3: The working names of this fic had been Kiss Kiss Curse Curse, and Kissy Cursie.   
>    
> A/N4: Wicked premiered later in the UK than the year where we canonically should be in this story, but I don’t really care about historical accuracy. :)
> 
> A/N5: Thank you for everyone who made it possible for me to put this into the world! Thank you Lilyseyes, Torino and Badgerlady. Shoutout to my favourite berry, Hippo.  
>    
> Thank you for reading, comment if you liked! :) :) 
> 
> Please leave a comment here or at [LiveJournal](https://snape-potter.livejournal.com/3912829.html), [Insanejournal](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snape_potter/1839577.html), or [Dreamwidth](https://snape-potter.dreamwidth.org/1171405.html).


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